Ira Glass for Prison Performing Arts

Ira Glass came to town this past weekend and did a live version of a previous show of his, 'Act V'

which is about a prison in Pacific, Missouri (about an hour away from St. Louis) where a woman, Agnes, has an organization called Prison Performing Arts where she goes into prisons and leads them in performing a play.  

Since I had already heard the specific show on This American Life on NPR, the live performance was a little bit of a repeat.  What made it worth it was the experience of seeing St. Louis' "intellectual elite" out in droves to The Pageant.  The Merlot flowed and three-part questions abounded in the Q&A time.  Also, since the show aired quite a bit ago, many of the prisoners have been released and were able to perform sections of Hamlet live.  That was very cool.  

Ira Glass mixes music with the interviews in his show, and to be a good showmen, included lots of hand-flourishes when he pressed various buttons on stage.  One interesting thing that Ira Glass mentioned is his definition of Art (I think it was Ira, it could have been Jack Hitt - the journalist): "Art is about communicating an urgently held feeling.  Ever since going to L'Abri, where we debated the definition of art at every discussion lunch for a month, I have kept my ears open for new definitions.  My favorite still is "Art is any intentional action."

Anyways, another thing that stood out to me was the absolute charity (in the best, C.S. Lewis charitable love definition) exhibited in Agnes, the woman in charge of Prison Performing Arts.  She said "once you realize that people in prison are us - caught - it makes you want to be around them more."  How wonderful and true.  

Ira Glass also brought up the topic of being redeemed by art, that there is something inside us that can only be reached and reformed by performing and sharing in art.  What a beautiful idea.  In closing, Ira discussed the power of narrative (to be frank, I wish the entire show was him talking about this).  He said "The power of narrative is a back door to a very deep part of ourselves.  By empathizing we find ourselves."  And "we are inundated with narrative in society.  When a story surprises us, it matters."  His mission with This American Life is to find stories which surprise.

And one last link, my very favorite This American Life episode: "Break-Up"